


Never Dig Straight Down

by Nightsister



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Derek Hale is a Little Shit Too, Everyone Is Alive, M/M, Stiles Stilinski is a Little Shit, Teen Wolf Plays Minecraft, Warning: Kate Argent, YouTubers - Freeform, online bullying
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3791269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightsister/pseuds/Nightsister
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love in the time of Endermen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the "Teen Wolf kids play Minecraft" fic that no one really asked for. The difference in age between Stiles and Derek is probably less than in the show, although we don't really have a clear and/or definitive answer on Derek's age anyway, so...
> 
> Also not beta read, my apologies. I'm terrible at figuring out what's triggering or not (except for the obvious issues) but there will be online bullying. Please let me know if there are any screw ups or things I should warn for. Thank you.

It was a given that anything Scott did Stiles would most likely soon follow, and vice versa. Whether it was trying out for the lacrosse team (kinda boring as a benchwarmer) or playing Five Nights at Freddy's (also surprisingly kinda boring), the boys were always turning each other onto new and different experiences. Stiles drew the line at the whole fur and fang thing that Scott had going on, but otherwise he was willing to at least consider it.

Also, Stiles plus boredom was a bad, bad combination. Tonight he’d done his trig worksheet, studied for his APUSH test, and even went ahead a couple of chapters in the AP English reading because he _needed like breathing_ to know why Meursault was such a dick to his mom. (Obviously Meursault was a spoiled baby who didn’t appreciate what he had.) 

He hadn't gotten a satisfactory answer by the time his phone chirped with a new text, so he sighed and swiped his thumb to a message from Scott.

Jawbeast: _dude, check my channel_  
Me: _ew no channel what where_  
Jawbeast: _no what_  
Jawbeast: _youtube ill send u thr link_

“Scotty, you dumbass,” Stiles muttered.

Me: _dont text link email me_

Predictably, the phone rang before Stiles could even open his laptop. 

“Yo man, you a cam whore now?”

“What?” How Scott could be so confused and naive in this day and age, Stiles didn't know. “Dude. I got a YouTube channel! And I even have subscribers!”

By the time Stiles clinked on the link that took him to YouTube, Scott had filled him in on the important details: that mutual friend Isaac Lahey had introduced him to the fun that was Minecraft minigames, and they’d joined a server that hosted a game that was very loosely based on the Hunger Games books. “And I won! Dude, it was so epic! Isaac died like right away but he followed me around and told me where people were and I killed them and got to deathmatch and I did it!”

“So I see, Scotty boy,” Stiles said, logging into his YouTube account. “How did you record this? When did you record this?”

“Uh, well,” Scott answered. He sounded sheepish. “Isaac gave me his old recording software because he got his brother’s. And Kira, remember she got a PS4 for her birthday? She started playing Minecraft a few months ago and I was over her house, and we kind of got into it and I got my own account and then Isaac told me about minigames and that was it.” He chuckled. “It’s not just building things and digging stuff up and killing creepers and spiders. You get on a good server and it’s like PVP all the time.”

Stiles grinned into the phone. “Okay I think I got like 87% of what you were saying. Holy shit, you have… twenty-three subscribers. You’re hitting the big time, buddy.”

“Shut up!” Scott laughed. “Just watch the newest video. I think it came out pretty funny.” There was a muffled noise of motherly nagging and Scott return of _It’s Stiles, mom! Okay, I will! OKAY!_ and Stiles knew their time was up.

“All right, well you got twenty-four subscribers now,” he said. “Am I picking you up tomorrow?”

“Nah, I got my mom’s car,” Scott replied. “I’m getting Kira so I’ll see you in homeroom. Night, man.”

Stiles returned his full attention to Scott’s twelve-minute video after he ended the call. His friend didn't lie - it was pretty funny. He quickly figured out that PVP meant ‘player versus player’ and more than a few times he replayed Isaac’s hilarious screech when he was killed- that never got old. He actually found himself cheering along with Scott when he won the four way deathmatch and after Isaac’s “YAY!” comment and Kira’s “THAT WAS AWESOME SAUCE!” wrote “WTG buddy!” He frowned at some dick’s comment sneering about beginner’s luck but hey, this was YouTube. 

He noticed that Scott had another video on his channel uploaded a few days prior and clicked on it, curious. It was titled _Let’s Play Minecraft: My First Night_ and it was basically that: a roughly eight-minute video of Scott’s first time playing Minecraft.

_What’s up, party people? I’m Wafffles - three Fs - and welcome to My First Night! My girlfriend Kira started playing Minecraft a few months ago and seriously, it does not look all that hard, y’know? So she bet that I couldn’t last one night by myself and this is the result. I’ve got pizza riding on this, guys. Let’s do it!_

Stiles watched in growing amusement as Scott narrated everything he did, from punching trees with his fists to get wood blocks, to making some sort of table, to in turn making some sort of wooden tool.

_I forgot I needed coal and I don’t have any cobblestone, shoot, so I can’t make torches for charcoal and wow that sun is going down fast, so let’s just quickly dig into this mountain so we can make a cave and- AHHHHHHH!_

Stiles burst out laughing as Scott had apparently dug into a cavern with a pit of lava at the bottom and consequently fell right into it. A red hazy message saying “You Died!” popped up on the screen. He was still chuckling as the Scott in the video wheezed and choked.

_What happened?! How-?! Why-?!_ There was another long drawn out sigh and then: _Well, there you have it, folks. I lasted… oh about seven minutes and change in my first time playing Minecraft by myself. Lava is a bitch, I’m telling you. I hate you, lava! But if you liked my flailing and proof that werewolf reflexes and healing won’t save you in Minecraft, please smack that Like button and I’ll catch y’all on the flipside. And now I owe my girl a pizza, damn. Wafffles out!_

Amazingly, Scott already had over eighty likes on his short little video, and Stiles added his thumbs up as well. Again, the same dickwad who had left the derisive comment on the Hunger Games video had commented “LOL noob” on this one, and Stiles frowned and made a note of the ‘BlackCazadr’ username. He went back to the minigames video and rewatched it carefully and yep, there he was: BlackCazadr. He'd been one of the four deathmatch finalists but had been killed by someone who then had been killed by Scott. So this guy was a sore loser and a jerk. Stiles narrowed his eyes and made a mental note. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't care what Jeff Davis thinks, lacrosse season starts in the early spring.

It took another week and watching four more of Scott’s YouTube videos before Stiles thought, _Fuck it, I can totally do better than Scott._ This led to Stiles buying his own Mojang account and downloading Minecraft to his old Windows 7 desktop, which he had first retrofitted with a better video card and more memory and hard drive space and wiped everything except what he needed to play the game. 

With Scott’s help and for verisimilitude, Stiles also loaded up a video recorder to capture his first few games. He didn't die within minutes, but he realized that surviving the Overworld wasn't as easy as he thought it would be, even though he was also totally researching the fuck out of the game and everything about it. He made his noob tower and his first home was made with dirt and raw wood blocks, and for a couple of nights he stayed in his dark little room listening to zombie moans and the zing of arrows from skeletons before he managed to make torches and kill cows and chickens for food and (score!) get wool for a bed. The first time he fought an Enderman and listened to its eerie death shriek? Terrifying. But he got an Ender pearl for his troubles (and promptly teleported into the side of a mountain), so there was that.

Uploading his videos was a different sort of terrifying. By this time Scott had an amazing few hundred subscribers thanks to his association with Isaac, who surprisingly had _several thousand_ already. Scott was adorable and brought Kira into the games with him, and with his funny personalized skin (he had armor that looked like waffles) and with her own ridiculously cute skin (her armor looked weirdly and yet appropriately like lavender colored pancakes) and bubbly personality, they made a great couple in the PVP games, even with her shouting _Get him get him! Pickaxe in the FACE!_ every few minutes.

But Stiles? He had his funny teleporting fail after the fight with the Enderman and his relatively successful run surviving in the Overworld - he now had a farm and was breeding cows and pigs and god knows how many chickens - but he had yet to try any of the minigames.

“Dude, come on to the WolfDen server tonight,” Scott said at lunch, around a mouthful of Doritos. “We’re all gonna get on Skype and play Bridges. It’ll be awesome.”

Stiles thought about what homework he had already and what he anticipated in the next classes. It would be tough but they had a bye week so they didn't have a lacrosse game again until after Spring Break. If he got home right after school, he could swing it. But wait.

“I’m gonna look like a noob,” he said, frowning. “I only have a Steve skin, I haven’t customized anything yet.”

“That’s because _you_ are a noob,” Isaac pointed out, smirking. He bit into his apple and chewed thoughtfully. “But with WolfDen’s Bridges everybody looks like Steve or Alex for some reason so it’ll be fine.”

“Ooh, are we teaming tonight?” Kira said excitedly, gracelessly falling onto the bench. “Supe Troop, wassup!”

But Isaac was shaking his head. “That’s not gonna work with Stiles, he’s just a human,” he said, in an utterly buzzkilling manner.

“Pfft. Nobody’ll care and ‘Supe Plus One Human Troop’ is too wordy,” Kira said, scoffing. “Come on, we’ll get Erica and Allison and we can be on the same team and KILL THEM ALL!”

It was Scott’s turn to frown. “But if Erica joins then Boyd will, and that means Derek probably will too,” he said.

Isaac grimaced. “I know Laura’s my alpha but I hate that guy.”

“Shhh!” Kira hushed them, scowling. “That’s not nice. Derek’s an okay guy. You’re just jealous because he’s better at PVP than you.”

“But I’m better at parkour, which makes me brilliant and amazing,” Isaac said with a sniff. “Whatever. I’m just saying that he’s such a downer and he’s a traitor. He takes that ‘Lone Wolf’ shit to extreme, ridiculous levels.”

Stiles listened to the conversation with silent attention. He knew Laura Hale through her position as the alpha for most of the teenage non-Hale werewolves in Beacon Hills, but her siblings were sort of a mystery, since her three younger sisters went to the tony private school further up in the mountains and her younger brother Derek was already in college. The Hales all lived together, four or five generations strong, in a huge rambling estate deep in the forest and almost into the Preserve itself. They also mostly kept to themselves, although the current matriarch Talia Hale was well-known and respected as the town comptroller.

“So wait,” he said, chasing his straw around the opening of his Gatorade, “Derek plays with you guys too?”

Scott frowned again, which he seemed to do a lot when Derek Hale was mentioned. “Yeah, sometimes,” he said. “He’s the one that turned Isaac on to Hunger Games. The WolfDen is Laura’s server, she’s the owner and mods it with some of her older cousins. She used to be a huge YouTuber. AllHaleMC? She had like way over a million subscribers. Derek has like over half a million.”

“Which I don’t get at all,” Isaac cut in, leaning forward. “He has a sucky personality and he’s completely monotone and he’s ruthless.” He threw down his sandwich in disgust. “The first time we played Sky Wars together he told me to bridge over to his island and then he knocked me off with an egg! He thought it was so funny. His username is BlackCazadr, which is like a DC reference or something.”

Something pinged in Stiles’s subconscious when he recalled the username. “That tool?!”

Scott nodded, knowingly. "Right?" He took a banana out of his paper bag and held it out to Stiles, who took it with a grateful smile. Stiles loved bananas but his father detested them. It was a tragedy. "You still have your gaming headset?"

"Sure, it's not great but it works, why? For the call?"

"Yeah.” Scott kept nodding. “If you really get into recording your games we'll get you a good mic setup but it'll do for now."

Stiles smiled, getting pumped for the night ahead. “All right. Let’s do this.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I fudged some of the details of this Minecraft minigame for clarity's sake. I also don't know if chickens drop eggs in Bridges but let's assume it could happen lalala.

It was a weird and spectacular night, to say the least.

After signing into Skype, Stiles logged onto the WolfDen server where he’d registered as soon as he’d gotten home, and found himself in a huge room with many other players, all jumping and running around aimlessly.

“Everybody here?” Scott asked, his voice tinny through Stiles’s old gaming headset. After getting a handful of affirmatives, he added, “Cool. Stiles, right click and you’ll see like an inventory with a bunch of Bridges games. We’re gonna go to Bridges number five, guys. And make sure you hit Blue when the game is ready. Okay? Whoever’s recording, start now. Here we go!” He started his spiel:

_What is UP, party people? My name is Wafffles-_

\- “With three Fs!” 

_Thanks, babe! Yep, it’s me, Wafffles with the extra F for FUN! And I’m here of course with my boo, PancakeKit, and basically everyone I know and love! BetaGamer, say hi, Isaac-_

“Hey.”

_That was so... enthusiastic, dude._ Scott laughed. _Also Isaac’s boo and my former boo - can I call you my former boo, is that cool? - Allison, otherwise known as Silvera, and tonight we’re also graced with the presence of BoydZone and VMBZone! Say hi, Erica and Boyd!_

Erica’s squeal made up for lack of response from Boyd, who Stiles learned never recorded or barely even spoke during games. 

_And I saved the best for last - sorry everyone else! - because making his Bridges debut, my brother from another mother, my bro boo, the one, the only: Nightwinger1994, a.k.a. Stiles! Yay! Say hi, man!_

“Hi man,” Stiles said, smiling, hoping that he wasn’t drowned out by everyone’s cheers when he added, “I think we started. What do I do?” He suddenly found himself on an island surrounded by water, with three other islands in the distance. People he didn’t recognize were busy mining into a small hill, so he followed.

“Oh god!” Scott exclaimed. “Okay, can someone-”

“It’s easy,” Erica cut in. “You have ten minutes to dig up resources like iron and coal and diamonds and after ten minutes the ice starts forming and then we can go to other islands and it’s all out PVP.”

“Make sure you don’t dig so far you break through and fall into the Void, although I think if you die you respawn on the island during the ten minutes,” Isaac explained. “And you can walk on the ice but the water is always fatal.”

“Okay, I can do this,” Stiles said, looking at the names of the players around him. “Um… how did I end up on Green team?”

“Green?!” Allison said. “I’m on Blue!”

Isaac snorted. “Classic. I’m Blue too.”

“So’s me and Kira,” Scott said. “Erica?”

“I’m on Yellow with Boyd!” Erica shouted, laughing. “I swear to you I hit Blue!”

“So did I,” Stiles said, his spirits sinking. “So is anyone else on Green?”

“Shoot, sorry buddy!”

“We’ll kill you last,” Kira said, apologetically. “Although it doesn’t seem fair, since you’re a noob.”

Stiles kept digging and collecting whatever he could find, quickly making a couple of furnaces for the coal he’d found. He was still nervous about playing his first minigame and wanting to do well but found that he wasn't as excited as before. At least, not until Scott suddenly burst out laughing.

“I have a special surprise treat for everybody!” he said. “I just got a Skype request from the one and only Laura Hale! All hail the mighty Alpha! Hi Laura!”

Laura Hale’s voice, smoky and sweet, purred in Stiles’s headset. “Hello my lovelies! So I was feeling nostalgic and dragged Derek into a Bridges game and I see a whole bunch of familiar names! Anyone on Green team?”

Stiles perked up. “Yes, me! Stiles! I'm Nightwinger. I don’t know if you remember me-”

“Stiles!” Laura exclaimed in surprise, “Of course I remember you! I didn’t know you played!”

“It’s my very first game,” he admitted. “And I’m on Green Team by myself and I don’t have a lot of useful stuff.”

“Wait, you're Nightwinger1994?” Laura asked. “I see your name, we're right below you. We're coming up.”

Stiles waited by the furnaces he had made when an Alex with the nametag ‘AllHaleMC’ showed up, followed by a Steve with the nametag ‘BlackCazadr.’ Shit. Laura had mentioned that she brought Derek with her, hadn't she.

“Is this your furnace?” she asked.

“Both.”

“Smart boy!” Her Alex started shoving various blocks into them. “Okay, I got a huge vein with a ton of iron already and we have sticks and Derek found four diamonds. Derek, make two diamond swords.”

“I was going to make boots,” Derek complained, his voice muted as if he were sharing a room and not on a mic himself. It had been the very first words he had said, and he was already grumping. Stiles turned the arm of his own mic straight up to mute it and sighed. He brought it back down.

“You can have the boots, I’m cooking two iron for a sword-”

“Don’t be dumb. _Derek_.” Laura didn’t have the underlying alpha push in her voice but Derek’s responding chuff of irritation was evidence enough.

“Fine.” He went to a random crafting table and threw a blue sword at Stiles. “Take it.”

“Uh, thanks.” Stiles watched the timer slowly make its way down and asked, “Should I keep mining?”

“No,” Laura said, decisive. “You go up top and slaughter any animal you come across. Keep an eye on the timer so you can come down and cook it, too. We’re going to need food to keep our hunger full and our hearts up. Derek and I will keep mining and we’ll try to make armor for all of us, at least chestplates and leggings.”

“Gotcha, boss.” Stiles climbed to the top to look for random animals, ignoring the background chatter of his Skype-mates.

“So not fair!” That was Allison. “Stiles’s first time and his noob cherry gets popped by AllHaleMC? Really?”

“Yeah… Stiles is so OP now!” Erica said, the pouting evident in her voice.

“He’s still a noob,” Isaac pointed out.

“Thanks, bro. Love ya,” Stiles cut in.

“No offense,” Isaac replied, chuckling.

“You’re still gonna go down!”

Scott snickered. “My girl Kira, everybody. So cute, so bloodthirsty.”

Stiles lucked out and found more than a few animals, including a couple of chickens, one of which had dropped more than just meat and feathers. He grinned, adding his egg to his inventory. He quickly made his way back to his furnaces, where Laura was finishing up at the crafting table.

“I got four steaks, two porkchops, and three chickens,” he said, moving the chickens into a furnace. “I’ll do the chickens first because sometimes it poisons you if you eat it raw, right?”

“We are SO gonna win this, you know your stuff,” Laura said, approval in her voice. “I should play more often so you’ll team with me, Stiles.”

Stiles preened, he couldn’t help it, but was quickly dashed when Derek interrupted with, “You haven’t even seen him in PVP yet. He’s going to get killed as soon as the bridges form, watch.”

“Hey!”

“Well, we’ll find out!” Scott said quickly. “Time’s up in three… two… one… bridges are forming!”

“Here we go!” Kira yelled.

“Stiles, come over here,” Laura said. She started throwing various pieces of armor at him and he threw some food back at her and Derek. “We had enough for everything but boots and I don’t have a helmet. It’s fine though. Let’s go!”

Stiles followed Laura and Derek off their island, taking care not to run into the water, when he spotted players with yellow names above their heads. “Over there!” he shouted, taking off for the enemy.

“Go go go!” Laura shouted. “Right behind you! Get them!”

In the background, Kira was making machine gun noises as Scott laughed so hard he started snorting. Various cries filled Stiles’s headset as his friends attacked and defended, pushed forward and retreated back to the relative safety of solid land.

“Shi- oot! Motherf- ather, I’m dead!” Erica screamed. “Dammit!”

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll avenge you,” Boyd said calmly. “I see you, Kira.”

“Noooo! Back, get back!” Kira cried out. “Allison, help me!”

“On my way! Wait, NO!” Allison muttered curses under her breath, thankfully too low to be picked up from her mic, as apparently she went down as well.

“Ha HA!” Laura crowed. “That leaves Isaac and Scott with the extra F for FAIL!”

“And I'm on Boyd,” Derek said grimly. “Watch out! Shit!”

“Language!” Stiles snapped, as various others also chimed in.

“Not cool, man,” Scott added. “But we’ll edit that out. It’s fine.”

“Whatever,” Derek grumbled. He cursed again, softly this time, as apparently his battle with Boyd found him the loser.

“Gotcha!’ Boyd sounded way too smug. “You know you- AH! Where did that water come from?!"

Everyone laughed but Erica actually chortled the loudest. “That’s what you get for not looking where you’re going, babe!”

“I didn't lose,” Boyd said, clearly disgruntled. “Water death doesn't count.”

“I saw that, you _backed right into it_ , it SO counts,” Isaac said, laughing. “That’s worse than dying in a fight. Sorry, Boyd.”

“Oh my god it’s you and me against Scott and Isaac,” Laura said to Stiles. “You see them? Don’t worry about anyone else. We’re coming for you, betas. I can _smell_ you.”

“Scary thing is, she probably can,” Allison remarked.

Stiles ran past his Blue teammates and soon found Laura, who was chasing after Isaac. “We’re coming for you, BetaGaming!”

“No! Two on one not fair!” Isaac yelled, twisting and turning around the treacherous holes in the ice. “Scott! Where are you?”

“Coming!” Scott shouted. “No, be cool, man! Be cool! Nooooo! I'm dead!”

Stiles joined the raucous sounds of laughter but turned his attention to the chase. “Laura, you hit him, he can’t have too many hearts left!” he said. “Chase him this way!” He glanced at the playerboard and saw that of the four colors, only four Blue team members were left and just one Green: Isaac. “We kill Isaac we win the game! Go Laura!”

“No, no!” Laura shouted, running away from Isaac. “I’m down to two hearts! I have to eat!”

“I’m on it but I only have three and I'm out of food!” Stiles shouted back. He ran parallel with Isaac, who was skirting the islands in an attempt to stay alive. Isaac turned in toward him and Stiles ran backwards at an angle, staying well away from the many holes in the ice.

“Get Stiles - he can't regenerate!” Kira yelled. “You can do it, Isaac!”

“Stay back!” Stiles said, running along the edge of a large ice hole. “Laura!”

“I'll be right there!”

“No!” Isaac shouted. He ran around frantically, evading and looking for an opening to attack.

Stiles waited, maneuvering until Isaac was between him and the ice hole and then threw his secret weapon: the egg he’d picked up earlier. He watched as Isaac flashed red and seemingly jumped backward into the water.

“WHAT?!” Isaac shrieked, amid shouts of celebration and groans of defeat from the others. “What happened?!”

“Yeah…” Stiles said, laughing. “I found an egg on the island.”

“You killed me with an egg?! Again with the freaking egg?! I didn't even know that could work!"

Surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly, Derek chuckled. "Die a good death, Isaac. He got you. GG, Stiles.”

_Good game._ Stiles flushed in happiness. “I took a lesson out of your book, man.”

This time, Derek out and out _laughed_. It was _glorious_. “Gotta watch those eggs, Isaac,” he said. “They’re killer.”

"I don't understand," Isaac grumped. "You were low on hearts! How could you run?"

"Ah, yeah. Sorry," Stiles replied, absolutely not at all apologetic. "Totally lied, dude. I had full hunger and was only down a heart."

"Oh you sneaky bastard-"

Laura's booming laughter drowned out whatever else Isaac was going to say. "Guys, I haven't had that much fun in a while. Let me know when you're playing again and I'll try to get on, okay?" She paused, then added, "I call dibs on team Stiles!"

_Well, that about wraps it up for this episode of Bridges! If you enjoyed our epic battle, especially since our gorgeous Alpha AllHaleMC came in and partnered with our newbie to destroy the rest of us, please smack that Like button! We'll see you next time, Wafffles out!_


End file.
